TPTP-PMC-20110228

Development Discussion

That's it! Thank you everyone. This is the last scheduled release of TPTP (as of now).

Misc

Kathy carried a motion to elect Paul and Eugene as Committer Emeritus of the project. Everyone voted for this.

Received a proposal from Torsten Stolpmann of Verit on joining TPTP:

Let me start by giving some background information. We are producing and distributing test automation and test management software. Since 2008 we are leveraging TPTP technology in our test automation platform PETA (mostly Platform/Testing Tools/Agent Controller) amongst other Eclipse technology. In January 2010 we registered with Eugene Chan as an TPTP extender in the "TPTP is looking for your input!" poll.

As the concluded termination of the TPTP project will effectivly lock us out of upgrading our product to further Eclipse releases we have a vital interest in keeping those parts functional and available in the future.

Since we have to tackle this anyway, we think now is about the right time to step forward and prevent TPTP from vanishing completely by joining the community.

So our first and foremost plan would be preservation of the current state for the Platform and Testing Tools sub-projects.

In regard to the last remaining Performance Tools sub-project we would agree to the current plan of termination, as we are lacking the hands-on experience with the code as well as the resources to support it.

As to what the future holds for the remains of TPTP is yet to be decided. Just two points here:

a) The current code base is just too valuable to just be burrowed and forgotten.
b) As open as it was planned, TPTP never attracted enough projects both from inside the community as from outside projects/vendors to connect to it. This we would call a worthwhile goal for the future.

We had some discussion among the attendees on Verit's proposal.

IBM's position is we do not have resource committment to continue with TPTP. Our plan was to start the archival of the project a couple weeks after TPTP 4.7.2 is released (around March 14) and finish the archival by end of March. If some other contributors are interested to take over the project, we could have a couple of skills transfer session and be available for occasional email consultation. We could even extend our involvement to until mid April in order to have a smooth transition. However, we will not be available after that since the current TPTP contributors would have moved onto other full time positions.

We also feel that since we will not have adequate time in March to make Verit developers committers using the normal process, we'll ask Wayne Beaton of the EMO for advice on an viable alternative process.

Kathy will be a focal point to have further discussion with Verit. Paul indicated he will be available to answer technical questions on Test project.

Oliver will arrange a meeting with Wayne where he and Kathy will attend to discuss how to make this transition work.

Next PMC meeting will be on March 8 10:00 EST (rescheduled from March 7 10:15 EST).